Adventures in music: Creating & Playing a totally new (and better) musical instrument: the jammer.

December 2010

Dec 11, 2010

I and my friends are attempting to write out information about music, especially how to learn it, make it, and how the thing actually works, all in a more-or-less scientific (yet whimsical) way.

Warning, this is my personal blog, and is apt to contain babbling, for more organized information on alternative, innovative instruments, See: Alternative Keyboards, which is much more organized and readible.

In a nutshell, we are combining current music theory, modern knowledge and simple ergonomics to produce "piano 2.0"; an improved musical keyboard,mostly built on the $430AXiS-49keyboard from C-Thru plus a few other things.

I've built four jammers and have found they have very significant advantages over the traditional design .. and few disadvantages too, of course.

In balance, they are faster to learn, very significantly faster and easier to play and more expressive. They are also easier to play by ear, in other words, to jam, hence the name.

In practical terms, it takes 10 years to become skilled enough to be passable pianist. With the jammer design, the same level should be reachable in 3 yrs. It's not a free lunch, but it is less expensive, yet ultimately a better value.

Indeed, the meshing of the keyboard layout with music theory, kinesiology and human perception is a great leap forward: it's fun to have an instrument where the melody and the chords intertwine, where it's blink'n easy to add chords to a melody and music just plain makes sense.

Like children, it takes a community to grow an innovation, so please join in; post your ideas and comments. This is your opportunity to make a difference, to get in at the start of something very cool, and have fun doing it.